Schiphol
The third NL-ix core location
Why a third NL-ix core location?
As technology continues to advance, the need for datacenters has become increasingly important for many companies. However, Amsterdam has recently become stricter about building new datacenters, making it a challenging location for many businesses. With these restrictions in place, Schiphol has become a popular alternative datacenter location.
Schiphol is an ideal location for datacenters as it has excellent infrastructure and connectivity. As more companies turn to the airport as their primary datacenter location, NL-ix realised that its footprint at Schiphol needed an upgrade to meet the growing demand.
To address this issue, NL-ix decided to expend its core to a third location at Schiphol that is enabled to support bandwidths up till 400G or even 800G. This move is a growth-resistant solution that anticipates the future needs of businesses in need of reliable interconnection and datacenter services.
The creation of this additional core location is a testament to NL-ix's commitment to meeting the needs of its customers. As technology continues to advance, businesses will need more reliable and efficient datacenters to meet their needs. By investing in growth-resistant solutions like the additional core location at Schiphol, NL-ix is positioning itself to be at the forefront of this ever-changing industry.
We are proud to partner with NL-ix in the rollout of 400GE and 800GE, providing NL-ix the ability to meet current and future customer demand for higher speed access and interconnection services at lower costs and with greater power efficiency.
Mark Vanderhaegen - European Webscale Team @ Nokia
Why 800G?
NL-ix is readying itself for another 100% increase in traffic and 800G will play an important part in this. It is the more economic and more sustainable choice, and we believe it will be the standard for big content networks, international clouds and larger ISPs. The new Nokia equipment is faster and also greener. It helped bring down the power consumption per Gbit from 0.9115 Watts to 0.1065 Watts. The simplification of the network, where customers are directly connected from all Amsterdam datacenters via grey lasers to the core switches, eliminates the need for expensive and power-hungry optical networking equipment resulting in even greater savings in power and cost.
The 800G Network in Amsterdam
The redesign of the NL-ix network involved a complete rebuild of existing core locations in the Science Park Campus (Digital Realty) and the South-East Campus (Equinix). A third core location was added (Schiphol Campus, Digital Realty) to improve resilience and expand reach. On each of these locations Nokia’s carrier-class SRS 7750 14s switch was used, increasing the switching capacity of the Amsterdam core to 648 Tbps.
Take a look at the map for an overview of the NL-ix 800G network in Amsterdam and find out what PoP’s now have a 400/800G capability.
Secure customer suite
NL-ix recognises the importance of safeguarding equipment, especially in high-priority core locations, and has therefore implemented secure customer suites at all its core locations. A secure customer suite is a closed-off area within a datacenter that adds an extra layer of security and privacy. It is only accessible to authorised personnel, with access controls such as biometric scanners or keycards.
The secure customer suites are a vital component of NL-ix's commitment to datacenter security and service excellence, and provide a controlled environment for our operations. By limiting access to only authorized personnel, NL-ix can focus on its critical infrastructure without worrying about unauthorized interruptions or access. This enables NL-ix to maintain high levels of efficiency and productivity.